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Title details for The Bookseller of Florence by Ross King - Wait list

The Bookseller of Florence

Vespasiano da Bisticci and the Manuscripts that Illuminated the Renaissance

by Ross King
James Cameron Stewart
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The bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling captures the excitement and spirit of the Renaissance in this chronicle of the life and work of "the king of the world's booksellers" and the technological disruption that forever changed the ways knowledge spread.
The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings—the dazzling handiwork of the city's skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.
 
At the heart of this activity was a remarkable man: Vespasiano da Bisticci. Born in 1422, he became what a friend called "the king of the world's booksellers." At a time when all books were made by hand, over four decades Vespasiano produced and sold many hundreds of volumes from his bookshop, which also became a gathering spot for discussion and debate. Besides repositories of ancient wisdom by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, his books were works of art in their own right, copied by talented scribes and illuminated by the finest miniaturists. His clients included a roll-call of popes, kings, and princes across Europe who wished to burnish their reputations by founding magnificent libraries.
 
Vespasiano reached the summit of his powers as Europe's most prolific merchant of knowledge when a new invention appeared: the printed book. By 1480, the king of the world's booksellers was swept away by this epic technological disruption, whereby cheaply produced books reached readers who never could have afforded one of Vespasiano’s elegant manuscripts.
 
A thrilling chronicle of intellectual ferment set against the dramatic political and religious turmoil of the era, including the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, Ross King's The Bookseller of Florence is also an ode to books and bookmaking that charts the world-changing shift from script to print through the life of an extraordinary man long lost to history—one of the true titans of the Renaissance.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 6, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780385697453
      • File size: 528011 KB
      • Duration: 18:20:01

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator James Cameron Stewart's precise diction and cool tone illuminate Ross King's detailed introduction to bookmaking, ink production, parchment and papermaking, and the various methods for distributing books in Renaissance Florence in this engrossing biography of Vespasiano da Bisticci. Fifteenth-century Florence was a city in political turmoil. Vespasiano, born in 1422, grew up to be a man obsessed by books who became known as "the king of the world's booksellers." Stewart's tone is scholarly as he delivers an informative look at the reasons for the shift from handwritten manuscripts, with their elegantly bound volumes, to the printing press of Johannes Gutenberg, which eventually led to the mass production of books. King's exhaustive research and Stewart's accessible narration make this a must for bibliophiles. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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